Even with its flaws “Beautiful Boy” can be a powerful film that handles some tricky and weighty subject matter with care and compassion.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 19, 2022

There are moments that are touching, but Beautiful Boy fails to dig deep into emotional depths. It skates the surface and refuses to evolve further than showing us how Nic's a smart kid on a bad path, David's a good dad trying his best...

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 24, 2019

Beautiful Boy is imperfect, but what works about it is very potent indeed.

| Original Score: B | Feb 14, 2019

Beautiful Boy is raw, real and a difficult film to watch.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Jan 8, 2019

It's an important subject matter but the fast-paced nature of the screenplay doesn't allow the emotional impact to sink through.

| Original Score: B- | Nov 20, 2018

The best scenes take place in a motel room, mostly hand-held, and Bello absolutely goes for it, and it's admirable that they hold themselves back a little bit in a story that's begging for histrionics.

| Nov 17, 2018

Beautiful Boy is well-acted and handles a sensitive topic with the care it deserves, yet ends up being an 'important' film more than a well-made one.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 20, 2018

Beautiful Boy has raw and emotional power without falling all over itself with melodrama, but it does come up short in some narrative regards.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Sep 14, 2014

You have to be perfect for a project as perilous as this one to work. "Beautiful Boy" is far from it.

| Original Score: C+ | Jun 22, 2013

The parents always know.

| Oct 11, 2011

| Original Score: 2/5 | Jun 24, 2011

There are no answers, only more questions, and the film beats you down, which is probably the point and the closest we can ever get to truly empathizing with parents whose children go mad.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 21, 2011

It is a mood dampener of the first degree, but it's a rarely told story at a time when this type of tragedy is becoming tragically ordinary.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Jun 17, 2011

In Beautiful Boy, the themes are vast but the picture is small, and the ensuing emptiness is what the characters are meant to feel -- not us.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 17, 2011

Beautiful Boy remains removed and distant.

| Original Score: C+ | Jun 17, 2011

It's primarily an actor's showcase, with Bello once again displaying her incredible range as she copes with the waves of grief, denial and rage.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jun 17, 2011

An excruciating drama about a couple caught in the aftermath of a pivotal moment involving their college-age son.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jun 17, 2011

'Boy,' for all its exploitation of the sensational, is a tense affair that challenges us with questions we may never have thought to ask.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 16, 2011

The film's depiction of a married couple in emotional peril rings true rather than maudlin, sustained at a riveting pitch through the consummately raw, sympathetic performances of its two leads.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jun 16, 2011

At a certain point lofty objectivity is just a refusal to engage, and no raw camera work can disguise it.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 16, 2011